Prior to becoming Pope Pius II, Aeneas Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini, was a Italo-German politician working the Imperial circuit. He career brought him into the service of both papal legates and the ducal Hapsburg family, which then ruled Austria and Strasbourg. This composition, to Sigismund Hapsburg, was composed in 1443, when Aeneas was employed as a secretary for the Imperial chancellery. He appears to be extolling the values of education on the young duke, persuading him the teenage duke to pursue the arts and literature as a way of enriching his mind and political clout as a ruler. In coming years this relationship would boil over with Aeneas' elevation to the Papal office and the dispute with Sigismund over episcopal appointments

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